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STATE OF THE UNION. 



SPEECH 



HON. ROBERT HATTON, OF TENNESSEE, 




,IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 8, 1861. 



The House llavinj,' under consideration the report from 
the seleet committee of tliirty-three — 

Mr. HATTONsaid: 

Mr. Speaker: The honorable gentleman from 
New York, [Mr. Sedgwick,] who addressed the 
House last upon yesterday, prefaced his speech 
with the remark — which has constituted the open- 
ing of almost every other speech during this ses- 
sion — that " we are in the midstof revolution." 

Six States, Mr. Speaker — among them two of 
the original thirteen — have, within the last forty 
days, violently torn themselves loose from the 
Federal Government, and proclaimed themselves 
separate and independent States. Others are pre- 
paring to follow theirexample. Our'country, until 
recently so peaceful and quiet, is being rapidly 
changed into a great camp of armed men. War, 
civil war, with all its train of attendant furies, isi 
xnimntnl. 

Can nothing be done to stay this revolution? 
Ifnot,itwillsweenusall to a common ruin. Can 
nothing be do-.«: to save the Government from 
utter destruction? I d3dress this question espe- 
cially to the Republican party. Your leader upon 
this floor, [Mr. Sherm.w,] in tliis debate re- 
marked, a few days since, that if it was not done, 
and " this Republic fell, liberty would die." Can- 
not the curse of civil war be averted ? If not, as 
that distinguished gentleman on the same occasion 
said," the condition of our country North, South, 
East, and West, will be worse than that of Mex- 
ico;" our fair liind scourged and blighted as by the 
hand of an angry God, will be divided into frag- 
ments, in which " military despotisms will be sub- 
stituted foi; the will of the people." 

Mr. Speaker, that gentleman earnestly appealed 
to members from the border slave States to arrest 
this storm, and give " time for peace and concilia- 
tion." Sir, lappeal to him, and to his party upon 
t'nis floor, for the means by which its arrest may 
be made possible. You have the power. It is in 
your hands. Shall we have it; or will you refuse 
it ? The struggle between those who would hast- 
ily dissolve the Government and those who would 
.preserve it, is going on before you. Six engage- 
ments between these forces, the first in South 
Carolina and the last in Louisiana, have been 
fought. In every instance our friends haveljten 



borne down. Are you indiflerent as to the result 
of those still in progress ? If you are not, I ask 
you to place in our hands the weapons of concilia- 
tion and concession, with which we may cleave 
the armor of our adversaries. Then, ours will be 
the certain and peaceful triumph — the triumph of 
the Union and the law. Give us that which will 
enable us certainly to assure the people of our 
State of your purpose to deal fairly and justly 
with them. Then, you may reasonably appeal to 
us to stay the storm. Do that, and we will witli 
alacrity, buoyant with hope and confident of vic- 
tory, spring to the contest. Then, you may ex- 
pect, not only that further eiforts at secession will 
be stopped, but thateven those States which have 
so abruptly withdrawn from us may return to the 
sisterhood of States. 

But, Mr. Speaker, I am met here, by Republi- 
cans, with the oft-repeated question, "What do 
you want us to do?" I answer you, gentlemen 
of the North, we demand nothing that it is unfair 
to ask,tnatwould bedishonorable in you to grant. 

I desiie, Mr. Speaker, at the outset of what I 
have to say in this connection, to express my 
sincere gratification at the movementalready made 
in the Legislatures of a number of the northern 
States, to repeal what are called their personal lib- 
erty laws; laws which, withoutprofitto the North, 
are ofl"enaive to the South, and are fruitful only of 
discord and alienation between the two sections. 

Some of you have said, " would you have our 
people repeal those laws under threats?" I say, 
no, gentlemen;! would not have you do anything 
underthreats. I would, however, have you repeal! 
them under your own sense ofwhat is right; under 
your own sense of the sacredness of compacts; 
under your own consciousness of the necessity of 
domestic peace and tranquillity, which these laws 
ai-e so well calculated to disturb. Let these laws 
be speedily repealed, and it will go very far in 
allaying the excitement of our people. The adop- 
tion of the resolution upon this subject, recom- 
mended in the report under considei-ation, will 
facilitate this end. 

There are other causes of disturbance between 
the North and South. Ithas been alleged by men 
high in position in the South, and by a large por- 
tion of the southern people it is believed — with 






what degree of reason I will not stop to inquire — 
that the ultimate purpose of the Republican party 
is, to destroy the institution of slavery in the 
States. 

I am glad to know that it has been proposed 
by that party, that, by an amendment of the Con- 
stitution, this source of apprehension and irri- 
tation shall be put forever at rest. The proposi- 
tion of the distinguished gentleman from Massa- 
chusetts, [Mr. Adams,] reported by the committee 
of thirty-three, would, if adopted, effectually do 
this.* It is not pretended that, under the Consti- 
tution, as it is, Congress has any right to disturb 
slavery in the States. The proposed amendment 
to the Constitution is simply to put it out of the 
power of the North ever to acquire such right, by 
an amendment by them of the Constitution. 

The questions of slavery in the District of Co- 
lumbia, in the dock-yards and arsenals, and of 
the inter-State slave trade, have been subjects of 
/much discussion. It is confidently asserted in the 
South that the Republican party, so soon as it 
shall have the power, will abolish slavery in this 
District, 'in the dock-yards and arsenals) and pro- 
hibit the inter-State slave trade. The exercise of 
such a power, if you had it, much more its usurpa- 
tion, would be regarded by the whole South as a 
flagrant wrong on that section. You say you 
have no intention of exercising any such power, 
if you have it. In the debate last night, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Junkin] dis- 
claimed for his party any such intention. This 
disclaimer has been often made during this debate. 
The committee of thirty-three say, in the report 
before us, that there is no proposition, from any 
quarter claiming or proposing the exercise of such 
a right. Still, gentlemen, if you have no such 
purpose, would it harm you to place in the Con- 
stitution an amendment that would free our peo- 
ple from any such apprehension .' In doing it, 
you would surrender no right which, you say, 
you intend or desire to exercise. 

But, Mr. Speaker, the most serious ground of 
difficulty, at least the one which seems to be the 
most difficult to adjust, is the subject of slavery 
in the Territories. Not that it is the most im- 
portant. No, sir. Prac(!Ca//i/, so far as any Ter- 
ritory we now possess is concerned, there is ii/cr- 
ally nothing in it. But the politicians of both sec- 
tions of the country have so long and so angrily 
tiuarreled over it, that the people have got it into 
tneir heads that there is something vitally con- 



*Joint resolution to amend the Conslitulion of the Uni- 
ted States, reported by Mr. Corwin, from the committee of 
tliirty-three: 

Be it resoli'd by the Senate and House of Representatives 
of the United States of Jimerica in Congress assembled, (two 
thirds of both Houses concurring,) Tliatlhe following arti- 
cle be proposed to llie Legislatures of the several States as 
an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, 
which, when ratified by three fourths of said Legislatures, 
shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of thesaid 
Constitution : 

Article 12. No amendment of this Constitution having 
for its object any interference within the States with the 
relation between their,citizens and those described in sec- 
tion second of the first article of the Constitution as "all 
other persons," shall originate with any State that does not 
recognize that relation within its own limits, or shall be 
valid without the assent of every one of the States compos- 
ing the Union. 



cerning them in it. Hence, they are obdurately 
tenacious of their respective views. 

Gentlemen of the Republican party have said to 
us: would you have us surrender our principles? 
I reply, must we abandon ours.' You say you 
are right; inay you not be in error? You say that 
we are wrong; may we not be in the right? Sup- 
pose, then, that this question as to the power and 
duty of Congress in the Territories was an open 
one: I ask you, ought you not to defer to some 
extent to our opinions ? But we say it is not an 
open question. We say that it has been adjudi- 
cated by a competent tribunal, deciding that we 
are right and that you are in error. 

You say the opinion of the court to which I 
refer was a mere obiter dictum, and consequently 
has none of the weightof the judgment of a court. 
For the sakeof argument let us grant it. Still you 
must confess that seven out of nine of the judges 
of the Supreme Court have, inelaborate opinions, 
declared that we were right and that you were 
wrong. This being the s(a/iis of the legal argu- 
ment between us, I submit to you, gentlemen, 
whether the proposition which we make to you 
is not a fair one: that we compromise our difficul- 
ties by an amendment to the Constitution provid- 
ing — what ? That in all the territory of the United 
Slates north of 36° 30' north latitude, your theory 
shall be recognized, and be put into practical op- 
eration, and that in all the territory south of that 
Ime, our theory shall pi-actically prevail. 

Certain gentlemen of the Republican party have 
said, in answer to this view of the subject, and 
by way of apology for their obstinate refusal to 
counsel concession and compromise, that they are 
but following in the footsteps of Washington and 
Jefferson and otherdistinguished men of the South, 
who, at an early day, expressed opinions unfa- 
vorable to the extension ofslavery. Mr. Speaker, 
if this argument were not otherwise unsound, its 
fallacy would be made apparent by the fact that 
I might refer not only to what distinguished men 
of the North, at an early day, said, but what they 
did, to prove not only that African slavery was 
right, but that the foreign slave trade was a traffic 
to be fostered and protected. Your ancestors 
held slaves so long as they were profitable, and 
insisted on the right of carrying on the slave trade 
for twenty-one years after the adoption of the Con- 
stitution. The most rigorous fugitive slave law 
ever in existence on the American continent was 
enacted by the ancestry of the gentlemen of New 
England, by which fugitive slaves were captured 
and rctui'ned totheirmastersatthepublicexpense, 
and with as little reference to the formalities of the 
law as are observed, to-day, in my State in the case 
of a horse posted as an estray. 

Now, Mr. Speaker, with all deference and kind- 
ness to gentlemen, whether of the North or South 
—separating the arguments of gentlemen fi-om the 
gentlemen themselves — I will be excused for say- 
ing that all such reasoning, as to what is now ex- 
pedient and proper to be done, predicated on any 
such facts, is shallow and dangerous sophistry. 
If persisted in by gentlemen, and made the basis 
of their action, amidst the complications that sur- ' 
round us, all hope of restoring harmony and good 
fellowship between thesections,will prove illusory. 



^^jp. 



The brief hour allowed me will not permit me 
to dwell longer here. I have merely glanced at 
some of the most prominent sources of difference 
between the North and South. There are other 
causes of disagreement; but they are such as I 
believe can be easily adjusted. Cannot these like- 
wise be arranged ? If we are not recreant to the 
holy trust imposed on us by our fathers, they 
can be, and loill he, arranged, and that, too, with- 
out further delay. 

Suppose, Mr. Speaker, that you and I are trav- 
eling in opposite directions along a narrow path- 
way crossing a fearful chasm. By careand mutual 
assistance we may pass each other. Shall each 
insist that he is entitled to the whole space, and 
determine to drive the other back .' And that if 
we cannot do this, we will engage in a struggle 
that will precipitate U3 both into the depths below.' 
If we are irreconcilable and deadly enemies, we 
may. We will not, if we are friends, sincerely 
anxious for each other's good. 

Then, Mr. Speaker, I again ask gentleman on 
my right whether this exciting and dangerous, 
though empty quarrel, about slavery in the Terri- 
tories, shall not, in a spirit of fairness and friend- 
ship, be set forever at rest? 

Among the youngest members of the House, it 
■would ill become me to make any reflection on 
the manner in which gentlemen upon this floor 
perform their duties to the country. I must be 
pardoned for saying, however, that I have been 
pained, from the first day of the session till the 
present time, at the seeming indifference of Rep- 
resentatives, from both North and South, in regard 
to propositions which vitally concern the very ex- 
istence of the Government. 

Gentlemen from the North say: " What have 
we done to bring about this angry and dangerous 
excitement in the country, that we should now be 
expected to come forward with sacrifices to allay 
it.' Gentlemen, there are those — and I am among 
them — who think you have largely contributed to 
create it. There are those who charge that you 
are responsible for it all. How this is, it is not 
essential to my argument to inquire. 

Three of you reside beneath the same roof The 
building is on fire. Reposing in it are your wives 
and children. It contains valuable stores belong 
ing to you. The flames are rapidly spreading. 
If not speedily stayed, the whole will be burned 
to the ground, your property destroyed, and the 
lives of your families put in jeopardy. Which 
one of you will quietly fold his arms and refu.se 
to make an effort to extinguish the flames, satis- 
fying himself by declaring to the others, that the 
iire did not originate in his part of the House? 
You, Mr. Speaker, and I, your constituents and 
my constituents, your family and my family, are 
the peaceful dwellers in the fairest fabric of Gov- 
ernment that was ever devised by man. In it are 
deposited our ancestr.il glory, our peace and se- 
curity for the present, our most cherished hopes 
of peace and of prosperity and of honor in the 
future. It is on fire. Flames, fierce as hell, are 
consuming it. Men of the North, would you 
prevent its destruction? You have it in your 
power. Without risk, without sacrifice, without 
dishonor, you can do it. You have but to speak. 



and it is done. In the name of those by whose 
blood it was cemented; in the name, not of Ten- 
nessee, but of a common humanity ; i?! the name of 
the people of these States, whose servants you are, 
I demand to know if you will longer stand indif- 
ferently by, and see it tumble in rums before you? 
In the debate on yesterday it was remarked by 
a distinguished gentleman, that if the concessions 
now asked for, by the South, were granted by the 
North, it would mar the beauty of our Govern- 
ment and injuriously affect its character for use- 
fulness and stability. Mr. Speaker, I do not 
believe such would be the case. I totally dissent 
from any such opinion. But suppose he is right: 
still, would he be justified in his purpose torefuse 
terms of concession and adjustment ? No, sir 
Your house is on fire: will you say to the firemen, 
" do not cast water upon my dwelling, you will 
injure the furniture within?" Such conduct, 
Mr. Speaker, were arrant madness. Yet, sir, in 
all kindness to gentlemen, let me say, if they will 
sit by and see this Government destroyed, lest 
perchance, in their effort to save it, some feature 
they may admire or think material in its struc 
ture should be injured or destroyed, their con 
duct will have still less of reason in it. 

.But there are those li*re from the South who, 
I fear, instead of being disposed to cast water upon 
the fire, are industriously adding fuel to the flames 
With such gentlemen I would earnestly remon- 
I strate. Gentlemen, in the name of God, I ask you 
to stop and consider. What are your constitu- 
ents — whose rights and whose interests you are 
bound, by every obligation of honor, jealously 
and fearlessly to guard — what are they to gain, 
j what may they not lose, by your hasty destruc- 
tion of the Government? The dissolution of this 
Union ! Will it remedy a single evil ? Will it not 
aggravate those now coiuplained of, and to their 
! number add thousands, which, in the Union, can 
I never exist? 

We complain of the personal liberty laws. 
Will our withdrawal from the Union repeal them ? 
I Will it not add to their number others more in- 
jurious and offensive? 

I We complain that our slaves escape to the free 
' States, and that the laws of Congress intended for 
! their recapture are not faithfully executed. Will 
a dissolution of the Union restrain them from 
escaping? Will the a6ro^a(io)iof the laws — con- 
sequent upon disunion — intended to return them 
to us, cause these laws to he faithfully enforced? 
We complain that our slaves escape Ifcrougft the 
free States to Canada, whence we have no hope of 
getting them back. Will our condition be im- 
proved when the free States shall, by our act, be 
converted into another Canada, differing only from 
the other, in that it will be immediately upon our 
borders, and to reach it the slave will have no need 
of the underground railway? 

We complain that we have not the right of 
transit through, and temporary residence in, the 
free States with our slaves. One northern State 
now gives to us these rights. Others, we have 
reason to hope, may follow her example. One 
thing is manifest, we are not more likely to get 
them out of, than in, the Union, as it is a privilege 
granted us by no foreign State. 



We complain that the soil of one of our States i 
has been invaded by armed men, whose fiendish 
purpose was to incite insurrection among our 
slaves. When Virginia shall constitute a portion 
of a southern confederacy, will the danger of a ! 
repetition of this mad and most wicked undertak- 
ing be lessened .' By whom were Brown and his 
fellow-conspirators captured and placed in the 
hands of the law, that they might expiate upon 
the gallows the guilt of their most utinatural 
crimes? By the forces of the Federal Govern- 
ment. Will these forces prove more efficacious 
for our protection when we shall have renounced 
all allegiance to the Government and forfeited all 
claim to its interposition .' Shall the hordes of 
northern fanatics, whose impudent interference 
with what does not in the least concern them, we 
so justly complain of, and from whom is our only 
danger of invasion to be apprehended, shall they j 
be restrained by the strong arm of the States uni-> 
ted, or shall they be let loose upon us, as were 
the Goths and Vandals upon southern Europe.'* 

We complain that northern Governors refuse 
to promptly deliver up, as they should, fugitives 
from justice — persons who have stolen our slaves, 
for example. When the North shall become to 
us a foreign nation, we ^ill not have, in such a 
case, under any extradition treaty we will be able 
to make, even a pretext to demand such fugitive. 
We have reference made in tlie papers of this 
morning to a case now pending in Canada, where j 
a fugitive slave, who slew a man in Missouri who 
was attempting to capture him, has been de- 
manded. And although the authorities of Canada ! 
were disposed to surrender the murderer, so fa-; 
natical are the English people in their hatred to 
slavery, a writ of habeas corpus has been issued 
by the IBritish courts to remove him to England, 
in order that he may be discharged. 

We complain that equal and exact justice is not 
done us in the Territories; at least, that there is a ' 
powerful party in the North that have declared 
their intention to prevent us carrying our slaves 
there. 

The adjudication of the Supreme Court in the 
Dred Scott case, has put it out of the power of 
that party to do this, if they would. But if such ! 
a power existed and was exercised, I submit to 
gentlemen from the South if a remedy for this! 
flagrant injustice to us is to be found in the abso-; 
lute surrender of the Territories, for every pur- i 
pose, to the North.' Would this repair the wrong, ' 
or heal our wounded honor ? \ 

A leading journalist of Virginia, in an elabo- [ 
rate article — marked and sent to my address — 
urging the immediate secession of his State, be- 
cause, as he says, " the North has deliberately, I 
unjustly , and tyrannically driven us from the Ter- j 
ritories," concludes one of his paragraphs with [ 
this heroic announcement: j 

" We go forth vvitli onlytlie soil beneath our feet for our 
inheritance, asking bi>t to be let alone by those who iiave 



* The adoption of the following resolution is recom- 
mended by the committee of thirty-three : 

'^Resolved, That each State be also respectfully requested 
to enact such laws as will prevent and punish any attempt 
whatever in such State to recognize or set on foot tl>e law- 
less invasion of any other State or Territory." 



I Is this the spirit of "the Old Dominion.'" Cer- 
tainly it is not. It is not the spirit of the men 
whom I represent. They are not prepared tore- 
treat and surrender to the North our vast public 
domain, purchased with their blood and treasure. 
I do not comprehend, sir, that character of chiv- 
alry which, in one bi'eath, recommends the break- 
ing up of the Governinent, because of an appre- 

, hended den'm] to the people of the South of the right 
to carry slaves to tlie Territories; and in the next, 
announces its readiness to timidly abandon every 
character of i-ight in and to such Territories, be- 
cause, as the writer just referred to says, " the 
North have decided against slavery at the ballot- 
box." 

If our connection with the Government is 
broken, Tennesseeans will feel that they have 
brought humiliation and not honor upon them- 
selves, if their interests in the Territories are thus 
to be suri'endered to the North. 

But, does any advocate of secession say we will 
have apartof the Territories, if need be, by force? 
What becomes, inthatevent, of thefeast to which 
you invite my people, of a "peaceable secession?" 
The truth is — and i want my people to know it — 
the purpose of the leaders of secession, who would 
seem to imagine that they had exclusive custody 
of southern rights and southern honor, is to s/mme- 

fiiUy surrender all the Territories to the J^orth. There 
is neither honor or profit in such a course. As 
the Repi'esentative of a people who have made as 
gi-eat sacrifices and shed as much blood in the ac- 

?uirement of these Territoriesas any in the Union, 
protest against it. 

What do they promise us in lieu of the vast do- 
main thus given up? The privilege, sir, of getting, 
if we can, portions of Mexico and Centi-al Amer- 
ica. How It is to be done, has not been explained. 
By force, and without provocation? If so — were 
it practical — I denounce it as unworthy of a civ- 
ilized people. Shall we imitate the example of 
the bandit and savage, who fight for plunder, and 
not for glory or honor? I repeat, how is it to be 
done? By purchase? We have neither money or 
credit to buy. Sir, it is childish fatuity to dream 
of our getting it either by force or with money. 
The British Government, wliose recognition the 
seceding States are now so earnestly seeking, and 
without whose aid they cannot hope to maintain 
themselves, will never permit it. That Govern- 
ment is, of all_ others, the most fanatical in its 
opposition to 'African slavery. She exercises 
sovei'eignty over the greater portion of Central 
America; and upon Mexico, in which Government 
she is known to have procured the abolition of 
slavery, her citizens hold adebt of over two hun- 
dred million dollars. She will never permit us to 
touch one foot of it. 

Is it not, then, your duty to stay your hands, 
and see whether the evils complained of may not 
be remedied in the Union, and those which will 
certainly be consequent upon dismemberment, 
avoided ? 

Appeals arc addressed to us in soft and winning 
phrase about "our sister States of the South." 
Eulogies are pronounced upon the "glorious little 



% I n^Mifm mmmmmmmmimmm 



South Carolina;" and we are asked if we can hes- 
itate to follow " her noble example." 

Mr. Speaker, I have nothing unkind to say of 
South Carolina. No one of her sons is here to 
speak for her, to-day. Within her borders, under 
the lead of Marion and Sumter, my ancestry suf- 
fered and sacrificed much that she might be free. 
Her soil was wet with their blood, and in it, to- 
day, repose the bones of those who fell in her 
service. Her commercial metropolis was the birth 
place and early home of my father. Let no hos- 
tility to her people be attributed to me. Though 
she has acted most precipitately, wronged the 
Government, and injured my people, still my wish 
is, whether united or not with Tennessee, that 
"length of days may be in her right hand, and 
in her left riches and honor; may her ways be 
ways of pleasantness, and all her paths be peace." 

But whatever may be my feelings personally to 
her people, I owe it to the generous men who sent 
me here, to warn them against the folly of being 
controlled by her mad counsels, or in the least in- 
fluenced by her example of weakness and wicked- 
ness. She advises rebellion against the best Gov- 
ernment on earth; I say rebellion, for that is the 
true and manly word. 

The doctrine of peaceable secession I utterly 
repudiate. As a remedy, under the Constitution, 
I believe it to be wholly without warrant. We 
have, however, reserved to us the great inherent 
right, that overrides all constitutions, of revolu- 
tion. When it is no longer tolerable for Tennes- 
seeans to remain in the Union, I trust they will 
boldly proclaim themselves in rebellion, and meet 
its responsibilities like men. The right and the 
duty of rebellion usually go together. Govern- 
ment is instituted for the benefit of the governed. 
When so perverted that the aggregate good is 
more than overbalanced by the injuries it inflicts, 
it is the right, and, generally, then it becomes the 
duty, of the people to throw off such Government. 
This is, however, a question which ii is unprofit- 
able to discuss. Whether the withdrawal of a 
State is called secession or revolution, is now un- 
important. The practical question is, " what 
profit" shall we have in doing what South Caro- 
lina advises? 

Let us hear one of her own citizens upon the 
subject of secession: 

" It is no redress for the past, it Is no security for tlie 
future. It is only a magnificent sacrifice of tile present, 
without in anywise gaining in tlie future. Such is the 
intensity of my conviction on the subject, tliat if secession 
should take place — and of which I have no idea, for I can- 
not believe in such stdpendods madness — I shall consider 
the institution of slavery as doomed, and that the great God, 
in our blindness, has made us the instrument of its de- 
struction." 

This is the language of Mr. Botce, late a Rep- 
resentative upon this floor from South Carolina, 
in an address, but a few years since, to the people 
of his State who were then threatening secession. 

He thought it " stupendousmadness"— -"only 
a magnificent sacrifice of the present, without in 
any wise gaining in the future." If it took place, 
he said, he would " consider the institution of 
slavery doomed, and that the great God in their 
blindness had made them the "instruments of its 
destruction." 



The idea of making a nation out of South Caro- 
lina seemed to strike him as absurd. In the same 
address, he said: 

" South Carolina cannot become a nation. God makes 
nations— not man. You cannot extemporize a nation out 
of South Carolina. It is simply impossible ; we have not 
the resources. We could exist by tolerance ; and what that 
tolerance would be, when we consider the present hostile 
spirit of tlie age to the institution of slavery, all may readily 
imagine. I trust we may never have to look upon the pain- 
ful and humiliating spectacle. From the weakness of our 
national Government a feeling of insecurity would arise, 
and capital would take the alarm and leave us. But it may 
be said, *' Let capital go 1" To this I reply, that capital is the 
life-blood of a modern community ; and in losing it, you 
lose the vitality of the State." 

He could see no profit in secession — nothing but 
ruin. 

The leaders in this moveinent in the cotton 
States, and others who ai'e aspiring to position 
with them, tell us that they " loved the Union as 
our fathers made it." What is it now.' Just 
what our fathers made it. If not, in what has it 
been changed.' We have the same Constitution. 
There is not a law — not one — upon our Federal 
statute-book of which we complain. The adjudi- 
cations of the Supreme Court, upon all questions 
alTecting southern institutions, are precisely as we 
would have them. The statesmen of the South 
have dictated the entire policy of the Federal 
Government upon slavery since the formation of 
the Constitution. If there is an exception to this 
rule, I would ask to be informed of it. There is 
none, sir. What then becomes of this twaddle of 
gentlemen about their love of " the Union as it came 
from our fathers?" 

As I have said before, there are serious grounds 
of complaint on our part against the North. J^o 
one of them, however, has its origin in the Con- 
stitution, in the Union, or in any law enacted by 
Congress. Mostof them,all thatare serious, may 
be remedied in the Union. All of them more 
efiectually in it than out of it. 

But as a reason for our hurrying out of the 
Union, we are told by the leaders in South Car- 
olina and other cotton States that we are " op- 
pressed, and have been for years;" that " the yoke 
of bondage must be thrown off;" " that we must 
be free." We, of the border States, have not been 
aware of our sad condition. Men of all parties, 
in Tennessee, at least, have innocently been of the 
opinion that they were "free." Until this storm 
ofdisunion broke over their heads, they were cer- 
tainly happy and prosperous; as contented with 
their Government as any people on earth. But, 
it seems our contentment was the result of our 
ignorance and stupidity. 

The chivalry of the cotton States have kindly 
stepped forward and informed us that we had not 
the sensibility to feel an insult, nor the sense to 
know when we are wronged. They have gen- 
erously assumed, gentlemen of the border States, 
the guardianship of both our interests and our 
honor; and, for the protection of the one, and the 
vindication of the other, they counsel that we put 
injeopardyourevery material interest, and then — 
commit suicide ! How, Mr. Speaker, shall we of 
the border States ever be able to repay our south- 
ern brethren for this unselfish and considerate 
advice? Should we, after respectful consideration 



6 



of their counsels, inform them that the remedies i 
proposed are worse than the evils complained of. ' 
and beg to be permitted to choose our own mode 
and measure of redress of all grievances, and "to 
regulate our own domestic concerns in our own 
way," 1 trust we will be pardoned. 

iVIr. Speaker, I do not think I have mistaken i 
the motives of South Carolina. Her purpose has 
not been the redress of southern grievances, but 
the total and final destruction of the Union, and the 
establishment of agovernment, the policy of which j 
she expects to control. Disunion, which has, in ! 
the language of Mr. Rhett, been " a matter which 
has been gathering head for thirty ycfirs;" dis- 1 
union for the purpose of reopening the African 
slave trade, or some other imagined advantage to 
herself, having been determined on, her policy was 
to secure thespeedy cooperation of the other cotton ' 
States, and then coerce the border States to follow, 
by forcing upon them, in the language of Governor 
Gist, the alternative of" emancipatmg their slaves 
or going into the southern confederacy," a con- 
federacy in which her favorite theory of free trade 
and direct taxation will be put into practical ope- 
ration. Sir, Tennesseeans cannot be driven. As my 
colleague [Mr. Nelson] said most truthfully a 
few days since, " Tennessee will never be coerced 
by men North or South.'.' She will do what she 
believes best to comport with her dignity and 
honor, and most effectually protect the interests 
of her citizens. As one of her Representatives 
upon this iioor, I protest against all attem|)ts to 
bully her into terms, come from what quarter they 
may. 

Without assuming to have a monopoly of all the 
courageandsensibility inthe land, her people have 
a just appreciation of all that concerns either her 
rights or her honor; and should the evil day come, 
when a resort to arms shall be necessary to the 
vindication of either, " my head upon it," sir, her 
sons will prove quite as fearless and as ready for 
the conflict as those who, of late, have been so 
profuse in the praises of their own courage. 

Mr. Speaker, the great question the people of 
the border States have to consider, is: will they 
take their own interests into their own hands and 
dare to defend them from attack from every quar- 
ter, or shall they permit themselves to be brow- 
beaten into submission to the schemes of the selfish 
and ambitious leaders of a disastrous revolution; 
whether they shall take time to ascertain what 
guarantees they can secure for their safety and 
for the full enjoyment of their rights in thellnion, 
or whether they will tamely submit to be dragged 
— inconsiderately dragged — without the remotest 
possibility of advantage to themselves, into a cot- 
ton confederacy, in which they are to constitute 
the exposed frontier. I say, without the remotest 
possibility of ad vantage, sir, for the reason , that not 
even the veriest Utopian projector of a southern 
confederacy, has ever yet had the ingenuity to 
suggest any possib'e good that will accrue to us, 
in any degree compensating for the almost innu- 
merable ills that every informed and reflecting 
man knows will inevitably follow upon our sep- 
aration from the Union. 

It is my opinion this day — and if, for any con- 
sideration, I should fail to express it, I would be 



guilty of unfaithfulness to my people — that the 
leaders of the disunionists of the cotton States, in 
their reckless selfishness, their utter disregard of 
what may be essential to our interests and safety, 
are practically our enemies, as truly as are the 
most unprincipled fanatics of the North. Already 
they have reduced the value of our property more 
than all the eifortsof abolitionism combined; and 
it is now for us to determine whether we will per- 
mit them to consummate our ruin. 

Mr. Speaker, the suggestion has been made 
that, as southern Representatives, it is unwise in 
us, in the hearingof men from the North, to speak 
of our apprehensions of evil in the event of dis- 
union. 1 confess, sir, to the weakness of having 
too long acted upon such considerations. As sen- 
tinels, we are falsg to our duty if we fail to ap- 
prise those we represent of dangers which, if 
seen, may be avoided. It is folly in us, anyhow, 
to delude ourselves with the idea that the Aboli- 
tionist of the North does not comprehend fully 
what will be the effect of disunion upon the whole 
South, especially upon us of the border Stales. 
Hear Lloyd Garrison: 

" At last tlie covenant with death is annulled, and the 
agreement with Iiell brotten, by the aetion of South Caro- 
lina herself, and ere long by all the slaveholding States, for 
their doom is one. Hail the approaching jubilee, ye mil- 
lions wlio are wearing the galling chains of slavery, for as- 
suredly the day of your redemption draws nigh, bringing 
liberty to you and salvation to the whole land." 

Phillips prays for the utter destruction of the 
Union, in order that its restraints may be got rid 
of, and that the protection it affords to slavery 
may be withdrawn. He says: 

"All hail, disunion ! Sacrifice everytliing for the Union.' 
God forbid ! Sacritice everything to keep South Carolina 
ill it.' Rather build a bridge of gold, and pay her toll over 
it. Let her march otE with banners and trumpets, and we 
will speed the parting guest. Let her not stand upon the 
order of her going, but go at once. Give her the forts and 
.irsenals and sub-treasuries, and lend her jewels of silver 
and gold, and Egypt will rejoice that she has departed. " 

Again: in the same harrangue, he declares: 

*' We are disunionists, not from any love of separate con- 
federacies, or as ignorant of tlie thousand evils that spring 
from neighboring and quarrelsome States; but we would 
get rid of this Union, to get rid of slavery." 

Sir, the Garrisons and Giddingses, the Yanceys 
and Rhetts, are practically conniving together in 
a wicked conspiracy, to result in the rum of the 
most vital interest of my State. Shall I applaud 
it.' No. Should I condemn and denounce it? I 
should. Ida. 

Mr. Speaker, among the many cunning devices 
resorted to by " the precipitators" of the day to 
accomplish their ends, the employment of the term 
submissionist is becoming quite common. " Shall 
Tennessee submit to be ruled over by Lincoln?" 
Sir, no President has ever yet ruled over Tennes- 
see. Our Presidents are not the rulers, but the 
servants of the people. 

Elected according to all the required forms of 
law, it is but a sickly and disgusting affectation 
of sensibility and spirit, for any man to assume 
that there will be humiliation or dishonor to any 
State, in the rightful performanceby Mr. Lincoln 
of all the functions of the Presidency. 

I submit to the Constitution. I submit to the 
high sanctions of a most solemn oath, adminis- 



tered to me at that desk, to support it — yes, sir, sup- 
porl it, not destroy it. Is there one here who loould 
more lightly estimate the ohligations of his oath ? 



Mr. Speaker, I am determmed not to be driven 
from the faithful performance, of what I conceive 
my duty, by the mad cry of crazy enthusiasts; 
nor shall I be seduced from its discharge, by the 
artful appliances of unscrupulous and mterested 
disturbers of the public tranquillity. 

On walking with a friend through the Rotunda 
this morning, looking upon the magnificent paint- 
ings that adorn its walls, illustrative of scenes in 
the early history of our country — its battles, its 
sacrifices, and its victories — and thinking of its 
present greatness, my heart swelled with patriotic 
emotion; and as I gazed into the majestic face 
of that god-like man — our Washington — a vow 
leaped unbidden t'rom my heart to my lips — may 
it stand recorded in Heaven ! — that never, so long 
as I was permitted to live upon the earth, wSfcld 
I do one act, or utter one sentiment, intended to 
alienate the feelings of one section of my coun- 
try from the other, or to weaken the sacred bonds 
which bind together its various parts ! If there be 
those upon this floor who think that the expres- 
sion of such feelings and sentiments is evidence 
of disloyalty to the South, I can afford to'despise 
their opinions. If there be one here who can look 
upon such scenes, and in their presence contem- 
plate the present disastrous condition of the coun- 
try unmoved, without pain, mark him well; " he 
is fit for treason." 

'' Let no such man be^rusted." 

[Applause.] 

I shall not follow the example of gentlemen in 
making protestations of my devotion to the South 
or to my State. If my home, my wife, my child- 
ren, my property, my honor — all I most love and 
most prize — if these are deemed insufficient guar- 
antees ofmy loyalty to Tennessee, and of my will- 
ingness to share whatever of burdens or dangers 
may be in store for her people, no empty declama- 
tion in which I might indulge here, would be more 
satisfactory. 

I will not say that I am wholly free from that 
shameful weakness which leads mankind to watch 
and follow the popular breeze. No, sir, but if, 
at this time, with my convictions of duty , I should 
bend before the angry storm that is sweeping over 
my State, I would despise myself, and bring dis- 
honor upon my children. / wilt not do it. I may 
be overwhelmed. Such is the probable result. Be 
it so. The cause is worthy of sacrifice. In no 
event, however, though those whose approbation 
and good opinion 1 should regret. to lose shall, 
upon my return to them, frown upon me; in no 
event, I repeat, can I be robbed of that richest of 
earthly blessings — the consciousness of having 
done what my carefully informed judgment told 
me was right. 

Mr. Speaker, the voice of passion is not always 
the voice of duty, and the public good is often sac- 
rificed to an unreasoning impulse. During the 
second term of George Washington as President, 
you remember that the French Government de- 
clared war against England, and it became her 



undisguised purpose to draw us into an alliance 
with her in her stupendous schemes of revolution. 
The popular mind became excited. Sympathy 
for France was enthusiastic, and threatened to 
sweep to destruction every opposing sentiment, 
and to immolate upon the altar of popular ven- 
geance all who dared to pause, ere they yielded 
their plaudits to the bloody actors in that tragedy 
of mankind. 

Washington stood almost alone, yet he stood 
firmly. His cool penetration detected the true 
character of the sanguinary assassins of France. 
Rebuking faction from his presence, spurning 
from him its venom and its vengeance, enthroned 
in virtue and conscious rectitude, he breasted and 
weathered out the storm, emphatically stood in 
the breach, and saved his country from the curse 
of a wanton war with England, alike securing the 
peace and safety, and maintaining the dignity and 
goodfaith,of the nation. When passion had sub- 
sided, the whole American people commended his 
course. 

Mr. Speaker, because General Scott has refused 
to give countenance to what his judgment con- 
demns, men who were 

" iMewIing and puking iu the nurse's arms," 

when he, amidst showers of bullets, led our forces 
to victory at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane — yes, 
political fledglings, who were not born for a score 
of years afterward, are now perverting his lan- 
guage, ascribing to him opinions and purposes 
which he has emphatically disclaimed, and de- 
nouncing him as " a traitor to the South." 

As an American , having a property in the riches 
of this old soldier's glory, I thank God, that, as 
in physical stature, like Saul of old, he towers 
above any of the people "from his shoulders and 
upward," so in the attributes of virtue and integ- 
rity and patriotism, he rises so inconceivably above 
his silly and malicious revilers, their poisoned 
arrows fall harmlessly at his feet. 

But my time is nearly exhausted. I have spoken 
freely, candidly — I will not say boldly — my hon- 
esLconvictions. It has been my purpose, if pos- 
sible, to throw into this great argument some word 
or thought- — in the same spirit in which the widow 
cast her single mite into the treasury — that per- 
chance might result in good to my country. 

Convinced that anything like a reconstruction 
of the Government, if the further progress of dis- 
solution is not checked, is impossible, my object 
has been to implore Representatives from all sec- 
tions on this floor to moderation and liberality, 
forbearance and justice. 

To my ardent and excited friends of the South 
let me say, in conclusion, as the liberties and free 
institutions which we have so highly prized, were 
acquired by one Revolution, they may be lost by 
another. 

To the men of the North let me say, if you in- 
tend conciliation and compromise with your breth- 
ren of the South, leave no room to reproach 
yourselves for hesitation or reluctance. If the 
Government is to be subverted, see to it that its 
destruction is not attributable to your unreason- 
able and criminal obstinacy. 

To members of all parties and from all sections. 



8 



in this House, let me say: shall we not, in this 
hour of our country's peril, lift ourselves high 
above that narrow view, bounded by the contracted 
horizon of self, of party, or of section, and thereby 
preserve tn mankind the only example of well- 
regulated liberty in the world ? • Or sliall we — in- 
different to all the memories of the past; heedless 
to the claims of humanity; wrapped in a stolid sel- 
fishness, see the glory of our fathers sink into their 
childrens' shame? I beseech you, brethren, to 
consider well the momentous issues before us; act 
upon them justly, firmly, as becometh men, to 
whose keeping have been intrusted the highest 
privileges ever given to man , and who are respons- 
ible to posterity and to God for their transmis- 
sion, unimpaired to those who are to come after us. 



When before Milan, Napoleon I, in addressing 
his' army, drawn up around him, told them that 
when they returned to their homes in France, their 
countrymen, pointing to them, would say: " He 
belonged to the army in Italy." 

Mr. Speaker, if, on account of our wicked per- 
verseness and want of patriotism, our country is 
not saved, and revolution and civil war ensue; 
when the youth of the country shall have been 
cut down like grass, our cities and villages burned, 
and our fields laid waste; when our ears shall be 
greeted by the weeping of widows and wailing of 
their children, with merited scorn and maledic- 
tions, we will'be pointed at by our fellow-citizens, 
who will say, as in shame we avert our faces, " He 
was a member of the Thirty-Sixth Congress!" 



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